Which colleges have the "gunners" in their pre-med classes?

kluge
Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:02:46 +0000

Re: curves. My daughter took a class where each midterm and the final were graded on the curve. She got A’s on every test — and a B+ in the class! Apparently enough students got “higher” A’s along with a smattering of A- and B+'s on the midterms, etc. to push the curve up to where A’s on every component of the grade weren’t good enough to ensure an A in the class.

I consider a rigid curve to be similar to a “zero tolerance” policy about anything - simply an example of taking the easy way out by avoiding the need to deal with difficult or challenging decisions by choosing to tolerate inane (or worse) results in individual instances. It’s sort of like the recurring debate about whether grade inflation at top colleges is warranted or not, given the likely aptitude and attitude of the majority of the students relative to the nature of students at less selective schools. Should an “A” always correspond to a certain percentage of the students in each class, regardless of the relative strength of the student body? All of the collegiate testing bodies, whether it be the SAT, PSAT, MCAT, ACT, etc. calibrate different tests with the goal that the same level of achievement results in the same score, regardless of the pool of test takers on any given date; logically a similar attempt at objectively equal measurement of performance would be the goal for class grades. It’s just that it’s much harder to attain that level of objective equivalency. Hence: rigid curves.